A lawyer told the investigating legislators she did not give gang members advance word of the police decision to move PCC members.

Maria Cristina Rachado, who is representing Camacho, is accused by politicians and the media of passing on the information to her client.

Workers inspect the wreckage of a bus burned by unidentified men

The authorities say the violence started after gang members ordered attacks on police, enraged at plans to isolate imprisoned leaders who control many of Sao Paulo's teeming, notoriously corrupt prisons.

Rachado told a congressional hearing on Tuesday in the capital, Brasilia, she did not break the law by acquiring a tape of a supposedly secret May 10 congressional meeting in which police detailed their plans.

Rachado told the politicians she went with a sound technician to copy the tape but never heard its contents and gave it to Sergio Wesley da Cunha, another lawyer, for the gang.

"I didn't pass on information to anyone," said Rachado, who maintained she had not spoken to her client since March.

Da Cunha also denied wrongdoing, testifying later that he believed he had obtained the tape legally because the sound technician agreed to make the copy.